FanHouse VonWafer

It's time to give Rockets coach Rick Adelman some credit before it's too late. After all, who knows what's going to happen Sunday? But it must be noted that he's doing quite the job on the bench this postseason, like he's done time and time before.

The mere fact that Adelman has been able to guide the Rockets to two victories over the L.A. Lakers since Yao Ming went down makes Houston's coach the MVP of this series right now.

It was one thing to shock the Lakers in Game 4 on Sunday, the first game without Yao. It's quite another to handle the Lakers again in Game 6 on Thursday -- by a score of 95-80 -- to force an anything-can-happen Game 7 back in L.A.

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Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.

That's Ron Artest's new haircut, a "Von Hawk" inspired by a promise made to Von Wafer should the Rockets advance to the second round. Artest wasn't exactly thrilled about honoring the promise, but he delivered.

From the Houston Chronicle:

"I just got a little mohawk, a little Von Hawk with a little splash of Rockets," Artest said. "I thought it would be fun. When I first was traded, I put the Rockets' logo on it. Everybody liked it, so I did it again. I kept my word with Von. I didn't renege."

[...] "Now we can trust him," Wafer said. "He can play."

Why are we talking about Ron Artest's hair? There were two compelling basketball games on Monday night; this is the most important thing I can come up with? Fair point. But I'd argue that Artest's hair represents more than a barber with too much time on his hands -- it's also a peek inside the playful camaraderie this team has created.

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FanHouse previews each round of the NBA Playoffs.

The Houston Rockets finally got that monkey off their backs, and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 1997 -- that's the good news. The bad news is who's there waiting for them: the top-seeded L.A. Lakers, who won all four of the regular season meetings between the two teams.

Cherry Picking recaps yesterday's action.

The Blazers and the Rockets are both playoff teams that have their share of obvious flaws. In fact, neither one of them have any business getting out of the first round this season. But thanks to the way the seedings shook out, one of them will advance by default.

Unfortunately for Portland fans, that team is going to be the Rockets, and the reason is rather simple: This Blazers team is just not built for the playoffs.

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The story's getting old, but Jazz fans won't mind if you repeat it. Utah again took down the Rockets in Salt Lake City, pulling away for a 99-86 win. The game remained in contention until the final two minutes, with Deron Williams finally spreading the margin with a few possessions of nasty.

But Houston can take something from this defeat: it is highly unlikely they'll shoot this poorly should the teams meet (again) in the postseason.

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NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

* "Walking down a hallway by the Pistons locker room at halftime, spied Kwame Brown coming out of the press room with a full bag of popcorn. Seems he'd ducked in to grab some food put out for the grunts and others." -- Toronto Star, via Basketbawful.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

No offense to the real dregs of the NBA, but Chicago, today is your day. The Thunder rolled into the CHI Saturday night and left with the team's second road win of the season, an 11-point victory over a purported playoff team. Kevin Durant had 28/12 with four steals to lead OKC, and Nick Collison came out of nowhere with 21/9.

But possibly the most important for OKC (which has the 29th-ranked offense): Russell Westbrook's seven offensive rebounds, part of a 14/12 performance for the young point guard. Westbrook and the undersized Collison had more offensive rebounds combined than the entire Bulls team. Heck, the pair had half as many offensive rebounds as Chicago had defensive boards -- for every three missed OKC shots (and they missed 78 FGAs), either Collison or Westbrook yanked down one. Unbelievable board dominance. It's called a box-out, fellas.

Von Wafer. What a name, right? For Lakers fans the name brings up icky feelings. You see, the Lakers took Mr. Wafer a pick ahead of Warriors star guard, Monta Ellis. Ellis has turned into one of my favorite players in the league, while Wafer has been tossed around from team to team for the last few seasons.

Anyhow, despite my obvious hurt feelings over the Lakers missing an opportunity to have Monta on their squad, I was happy to see that Wafer finally secured a home with Houston Rockets. Wafer has probably been on the best roll of his career as of late, scoring double figures in all four of his games this month. But last night, he got a little too big for his britches and ended up embarrassing himself a bit. Here's the footage:



After I saw Wafer get hung like that, images of a classic NBA commercial passed through my mind. See the commercial after the jump.